Castle turned his head and sneered, just as he used to do in Mt. Alban.
"You must come up and s-see me," said Robb.
"I will," replied Evan.
Watson came along for the draft register, winked at Robb, and returned to his desk, followed by Nelson.
"Is Mr. Robb one of the clerks here, Bill?"
"Yes—liability ledger. I had it on my mind to-day to tell you, but you were not around when I remembered what it was that bothered me. Sam's been here several months. They took his job away from him because of letters Alfy wrote."
Nelson could hardly believe it.
"The calf," he muttered. "What does Robb think about it?"
"Oh, he doesn't say much. He works like a nigger, all but about two days a month—when he goes on a tear. Been hitting the can a lot lately."
"I don't wonder," said Evan; "what has he to live for?"
He had something, though, as every man has—his self-respect. But one sometimes loses that when others do not attribute it to him.
Evan had never felt more incompetent than when Watson asked him to take out a balance. He could just as easily have "taken out" a degree at the Toronto University. While he fretted his still pounding head, Bill rode the round-up of registers, supplementaries and totals. Long drawn out exclamations reverberated in whatever corner of the office he happened to be searching.
"Teller's book," he shouted behind the paying teller; "come on, Sid."
The poor teller was short in his cash. Bundles were piled almost to the top of the cage; he snatched them up one by one and ran through them. He had a sore hand, too; it had been poisoned by infectious money. Two weeks later, when the teller had returned from sick-leave, head office refused to pay his doctor's bill, insinuating that the poison might be something else!
"Get out of here, you wolf," yelled the teller; "you're more —— bother than ——"
"I'm sorry for you, old kid," interrupted Watson, laughing; "give us your book, I'll add it up and maybe find your difference."
Sid Levison hesitated, picked his book up quietly, and faced Watson with:
"You're a yard wide, Bill. I wish we had more of you around here. I got in $50,000 in parcels this afternoon and Charon wouldn't send any relief. Gee, but I'm tired, and my hand pains infernally."
He yawned so widely his glasses fell off. Relieved of them, his face looked peaked and his eyes inflamed and weary.
"Meet Mr. Nelson from Banfield, Mr. Levison."
"How are you?" said the teller, offering his hand; "used to work there myself, years ago."
Then he turned to his money.
"How long has he been in the bank?" Evan asked Watson.
"About ten or twelve years, I think."
"He should be a manager by now."
"Sure," said Bill, "I could handle an easy chair myself for that matter. There are at least ten clerks in this office who could manage a branch, but everybody can't have one, you know. Managerships are sugar-plums to be handed out carefully by head office."
"I see," said the new man. "But," he added, "the banks claim they are very hard up for managers."
"That's because the job isn't up to much when you do get it; a good many fellows get out when they find what they're up against. A lot of this talk about the great opportunities of banking originates in head office and is peddled around the country for a purpose. The bank has the greatest advertising system in the country and the least expensive. It carries the biggest bluff on earth. The bank's on a par with political flag-wavers when it comes to handing the people the bunco."
About five o'clock Mr. Willis, the old general-ledger clerk and ex-manager, edged over toward the cash book, with his hat on and a pipe in his mouth.
"Well, Watson," he said, lighting a match, "how's your successor coming along?" The match was burning down, but Willis held it tantalizingly away from the pipe while he added: "Why don't you introduce him?"
While the match threatened to burn the old clerk's fingers he slowly greeted Evan, and puffing a last flickering flame into his bowl, in a way that showed how closely he had, during years of smoking, studied the science of combustion, asked:
"How do you think you are going to like city work, Mr. Nelson?"
"It doesn't look very good to me," said Evan. "I'm off color to-day; my head is bursting."
"Why don't you go home?"
"Yes, go on," said Bill; "I didn't know you were all in. You certainly don't look any too frisky."
"I may be on the job alone to-morrow, though," replied Nelson, "and just yet I don't know the first thing about it."
Neither Willis nor Watson advised him against the wisdom of learning things when he had a chance, so he stayed. No doubt they knew how it felt to be up against a new post in the middle of a day, with everyone too busy to lend a hand, or even a suggestion. The perspiration that has been lost under those circumstances would make quite a stream.
Bill had a bad balance. He worked till ten o'clock, taking half an hour off to eat supper. Evan stuck to it, too. When he got to his hotel he had nervous indigestion and a violent headache. He took quinine and went to bed, more or less disgusted with life. When the drug began to work and the pain of his head was soothed, a peaceful lethargy crept over him, and he wished that he might lie in such repose forever. He dreaded thought of the days to come, for he had had a glimpse of sedentary slavery.
"Oh, pshaw!" he murmured, and ebbed out into Dreamland.
The next morning he awakened late, and did not wait for breakfast. He was the last man to work.
"We begin operations here at nine, Nelson," said Castle, as the new man walked past him.
Evan stopped and looked back, but said nothing. He was not in a humor to explain his semi-sickness to one like Alfred Castle.
"We were waiting for you," said Key; "jump in, old man."
Although he had little idea where he should jump, Evan plunged, like a reckless diver, and fought his way through the previous day's work as best he could. Bill took advantage of a strip of smooth sailing to steal away and have a smoke in the basement. Soon Key found Evan hesitating over the work, and hollered impatiently:
"Hang that man Watson, where is he?"
Stimulated by the slang Evan made a great effort to qualify. Key noticed his earnestness, and softened.
"I beg pardon, old chap," he said, "you'll be all right in a few days."
Thereafter they were good friends. Whenever Evan wanted to know anything he went to the little grey-haired discount clerk and had it explained.
The day after his off-day Robb was on duty, working away silently and morosely. During the slight hill that marked the noon-hour he walked back to the cash-book desk to see Evan. His coming was welcome, for the third teller had just dumped twenty-odd sterling draft requisitions into the cash-book dish.
"Heavens!" said Robb, "they certainly load you down with work, Nelson. Have you eaten lunch yet?"
"No, I forgot to buy one when the kid was in." He didn't say he had also missed breakfast.
"Send out and get something," said Robb; "I'll make out these drafts for you. This isn't work for the cash book, anyway. I don't see why in —— they want to kill a man."
Robb's face was grey. He ground his teeth as he ripped the first draft from the pad. As he worked he talked to Evan, who was swallowing dry slices of bread with mustard and stray ligaments of gristle sandwiched between.
"Nelson," he said, "how would you like to come up and room with me?"
Evan's eyes opened with interest.
"Fine," he replied, "if it wouldn't cost too much."
"How much salary do you draw?"
"Three fifty."
Robb turned and gazed at his young friend.
"By G—!" he cried, "that's a crime. I hope when I die that they send me where I can see the torment of bank officials!"
The elder man's face was paler. The alcohol was not yet entirely out of his system. He trembled slightly after delivering so vehement a remark. Evan knew then—or thought he knew—how deeply Robb hated the bank.
"What would board cost me up there, Mr. Robb?" he asked.
The ex-manager thought for a moment.
"I pay seven dollars," he said, "but I can get you in for a month on about four, I think. By that time you will have found another place."
"That will suit me," said Evan; "I'll still have three dollars a week to live on."
Robb's lip curled, and he made a blot over an "i" instead of a dot; but he offered no comment.
"Come up for supper to-night," he invited, "and I'll show you the room. You might as well move right in, and make a couple of days' hotel expenses out of the bank."
Hurrying through the ordeal called "lunch," in order to let Robb back to his liability, Evan took the Sterling book and figured out exchange.
"Where did you learn that?" asked Robb, watching him do the first draft.
"Watson showed me last night," replied Evan; "we never issued them in the country."
"And they're giving you seven dollars a week. Do you know what this post is worth, Evan? Fifteen hundred dollars a year!"
The figure dazed Evan. He could not conceive of his being worth such a fabulous amount to any corporation.
"It's just as difficult as my job," continued Robb. "There's no difference between one post and another—except in the amount of work done, of energy wasted. It's all a matter of getting into a rut and plugging along there, like a plowman. A fellow needs certain qualifications like accuracy, speed, and a rhinoceros' constitution; but what is there to it, from the standpoint of prospects? Nothing—except work. I began in this very office twenty-five years ago. In two years I was almost as capable of handling the liability as I am now. All I needed was a little practice. I'm just where I started. I've been going round in a circle. That's banking! Do you think for a holy minute that if I was young again I'd give myself another twenty-five-year sentence? Great Heaven! what wouldn't I give to be back at your age? You may flatter yourself with the notion that you're going to have something nice handed to you some day. Well, you'll get it handed to you, all right, but not in a silver salver. You'll get it where the chicken got the a-x-e; you'll get it with the bank guillotine. You're now doing thirty dollars worth of work each week at a salary of seven dollars. What guarantee have you that the bank will ever change its policy toward you? If they tie a can on you to-day, it will be a tin pail to-morrow and a milk-can the next day. Haven't they done it to me, to Willis, to Key, to Levison and a hundred others? My boy, they don't give a fig for you."
So saying, Sam Robb humped his big shoulders and slouched up to his desk, there to bury his head in a gigantic ledger for the balance of the day.
Evan was troubled. He still believed that Robb was exaggerating; had not the ex-manager brought upon himself most of his failure? Evan had heard that pet charge made against disgruntled clerks, and it came to his mind automatically. Still, he had evidence of Robb's faithfulness both at Mt. Alban and here in the city branch, and—he was troubled.
To Evan's surprise, mail from the north brought the cheque Penton had promised to hold in the cash for a week. Not having checked out of his hotel yet, he had not submitted an expense account to Toronto office, and consequently had no funds.
The accountant brought the cheque to Nelson.
"Don't you know that floating cheques is against the rules?" he said, menacingly.
"Yes, sir, but Mr. Penton promised to hold it for me. Besides—"
"That makes no difference," returned Charon, impatiently, "this sort of thing has got to stop."
Evan tried to get a word in, but the accountant, declaring he had no time for parleying, turned away with: "We'll hold it over till to-morrow."
Had Penton tried to get the ex-teller "in bad" by sending the cheque so soon? It would, thought Nelson, be perfectly in harmony with the Banfield manager's knavery. Probably Henty had quit, suddenly; and, angered, Penton had sought revenge on Henty's old associate. However, there was no harm done, thought Evan; and he dismissed the matter from his mind—the cash book was load enough.
The cash book was, in fact, more than enough of a load, at first. On the second day of Evan's city experience, about six o'clock, Robb came around and asked him how he was progressing.
"I'm all balled up," was the answer.
Robb grinned.
"Never mind," he said, "come on up to the house and I'll help you out after supper. Never work—especially on a cash book—when you need nourishment."
Unwillingly postponing work, Evan followed his old manager. He said he knew Robb's boarding-house would suit him, so he went over to the hotel and ordered his luggage sent up. Robb went with him; and, finding a mistake of one dollar in the hotel bill, called the clerk down without blinking. Evan thought he would like to be able to do that. He was going to learn the art away out in Saskatchewan.
Robb's lodging suited his young friend perfectly. It was quite central, just a nice walk from the bank. After dinner the two of them sat in the living-room, smoking.
"This is going to feel like home to me," said Evan. "I don't see how they can put up board like this for four dollars."
"Well, it will only last a month," replied Robb, and whispered: "Don't tell anybody you're getting it so cheap; that's a secret between us and Mrs. Greig."
"All right," Nelson promised.
Mrs. Greig played on the piano, at Robb's request, after the other boarders had dispersed. She was a young widow, good-looking and clever. Robb seemed to like her.
Before long Evan showed signs of restlessness.
"I'll go on down, Mr. Robb," he said, "you can come later, if you wish."
Robb consented. Mrs. Greig's music seemed more suited to a man of forty-two than to one of nineteen, anyway. But the elder clerk was not long in putting in an appearance at the bank. He found the cash-book man in a state of siege. Evan was, in fact, hemmed in on all sides by warlike figures, obstinate and invincible.
Several clerks were working at "night jobs." They looked sideways at Robb and Nelson working with their heads together over at the cash-book desk.
"Sam's taken a notion to Banfield, I guess," said Marks, who was still out in the morning's clearing.
"You boneheaded mutt!" cried Cantel, glaring at his desk-mate.
"What's the matter with you—did you ever see an ex-manager come back to help the cash-book before? Next time we have to tick off we'll press him into our service."
"Get wise," returned Cantel, "or I'll press your mitts into service. Do you see that?"
He held up a cheque, which at first glance looked like $3.74. Its resemblance to that amount had caused all the trouble: the cheque was for $37.40.
"Every cent of our difference!" exclaimed Marks. "By heck, let's all go out and celebrate."
Accepting his suggestion as an invitation, the other "C" man, a junior, and a "supplementary" man banged their books shut and accompanied Marks to the nearest hotel. "Celebrating" is a favorite pastime of bankboys. Every balance found, every inspection finished, almost anything accomplished, requires a celebration. It is easy to get in the swim, and then one makes a fish of himself.
Sam Robb, the ex-manager, was almost as much at sea over the cash-book as Nelson was; but he had been a clerk longer than the young man, and he plodded ahead methodically, without that nervous anxiety that gets young clerks "up in the air." Robb's frequent remarks rendered the strain less intense to Evan; he worked with greater freedom and assurance than he would have done alone. Between them they struck a balance within a reasonable time, and locking up the vault went out to the street.
The lights of Yonge Street, the city environment, the pleasant April air, all revived Evan's spirits. For a while he forgot that he was a bankclerk living in danger of concussion of the brain.
"Let's take in a picture show," he suggested, with interest.
Robb smiled, and agreed. They entered a picture house called "The Rand," in the middle of a film (who ever entered at any other time?). It was one of a popular series of crooked clerk pictures then going the rounds; one of those in which some fellow robs the till and somebody else gets the blame: a woman comes on the screen, snatches her heart out of the villain's hands, and throws herself on the hero's neck.
"I wonder if those things ever really happen," said Evan, when they were on the street again.
"Sure," said Robb. "There isn't anything that can't happen—to a clerk."
Evan laughed. He was now chumming with his old manager; why not be more familiar and confiding?
"You don't think much of a clerical job, do you?" he ventured.
Robb regarded him seriously and with a certain amount of satisfaction.
"No, Evan," he replied, "I do not. I've seen too much of this dependent life. That's what a clerk's life is—dependent. He never knows the day or the hour when the axe will fall. Besides being in constant suspense, he is in danger of actually losing his job, any day. Now, life is too short to spend in dread of losing a position. If I were a young man again I would build on a solid foundation. As it is all I know is the bank. It would keep me guessing, after all these years of banking, to make my present salary anywhere else; and yet I'm not sure, at that, that I will always remain in the business."
They were walking up University Avenue.
"I'm awfully glad to get staying with you," said Evan, suddenly. "I believe I would have had a renewal of homesickness down in that hotel."
"It's a pleasure for me to have you, old man," returned Robb. "That homesickness you speak of is bad, while it lasts. It doesn't last long, though. When you come to my time of life and realize that you have had a different kind of lonesomeness for years and years, you'll begin to think ordinary homesickness wasn't in it."
The ice was broken: Evan asked a question he had long wanted to ask:
"Why didn't you ever marry, Mr. Robb?"
The old bankclerk showed neither annoyance nor surprise. One does not mind being asked a frank personal question out of friendship.
"It was like this," said Robb, unhesitatingly, "I couldn't afford it until I was thirty. I mean to say, the bank wouldn't let me afford it till then. The girl was from my home town, down in Quebec. We wrote to each other for two or three years, but I got discouraged and quit. I figured that it wasn't fair to spoil her chances; it isn't right for a man to do it. There were lots of men as good as I that she could care for, and what right had I to ask her to wait until she was on the shelf? It happened she married a bank man after all, but he was one of those guys with a pull; he drew two hundred dollar increases and that sort of thing. Well, when a fellow gives up in the love-game he usually begins to booze or do something just as danged foolish. Although I might have known she could not wait for me, still it hurt to have her marry somebody else—especially a bank man—and it took me years to get over it. And," he seemed to breathe the memory of it away in a sigh, "you'll find scores and scores of men in the bank in my fix exactly."[1]
Robb's reference to drink reminded Evan that he had not told him about Penton and the Banfield trouble. Why not tell him? As they sat before a grate fire he related the tale of the silver, of Penton's strange actions, and of the inspection.
"Take it from me," said Robb, when the story was finished, "you're a dead one in the bank's eyes from now on. To-morrow the increases come out. Just watch yourself get a lemon. Penton has blackballed you to Castle. Why couldn't it have been Inspector Ward?—he's a good head. I'll bet they give you a measly fifty to-morrow, Evan."
"In that case I'd be justified in quitting the bank, wouldn't I?"
Robb snorted.
"If you don't quit, increase or no increase, you're crazy. If I get you a job somewhere else in town, will you leave the bank?"
"Perhaps," said Evan; "but I'm low in energy now, you know, and I doubt if I would make much of a hit with a strange man on a new line of work."
"If you're feeling like that you'd better go on a farm for the summer and get your feet on solid earth."
The following morning Nelson put in his expense account covering cost of moving from Banfield to Toronto. He did not charge the bank with three days at a hotel, as he might have done. They might be unfair to him, but at least he would be honest with them. Robb saw the debit slip among the charges vouchers lying in the cash-book dish. He walked over to the cash-book man.
"You're hopeless, Evan," he said. "You deserve to be fired."
"What's the matter?" asked Key, who was always nosing around in his good-natured way, trying to find things out and dig clerks out.
Robb told him about the expense voucher.
"God bless the bank," said Key; "it seems to have a faculty for picking honest boys. I wish a few professional crooks or gunmen would slip one over on them occasionally."
Evan smiled and began to say something, when Castle came sailing along and cried, in his high voice:
"It's pretty near time, Nelson, that you knew how to draw a sterling draft. I don't want to have to cross one of these again."
One draft out of fourteen had escaped being red-inked. It was that gigantic omission that brought Castle back from the front of the office. He loved to show authority.
Robb and Key looked at one another, the assistant accountant gone, then burst out laughing simultaneously. Evan joined them.
"There you are," said Robb, turning to the cash-book man; "that's the kind of things the bank soaks you for. They've got a pick against you, Nelson. I have a hunch you and I'll be left out on the increases."
The ex-manager's hunch was not quite strong enough. Evan received an increase of $50, bringing his salary up to $400 per year, less guarantee premiums. Robb was cut down from $1,400 to $1,250, "until he manifested a willingness to accept what head office considered to his interests."
Robb had refused, for personal reasons, to accept an appointment to a place of ostracism, and that, along with the ill-will of the accountant and assistant-accountant of Toronto, was sufficient, in the eyes of head office, to justify the cutting down of his salary $150. It had been reduced $750 when he was first sent to Toronto—after more than twenty years' faithful service.
Sam Robb, that night at dinner, looked like a man who had been through a severe illness. He ate little.
"They want me to resign, Evan," he said gutturally, "or they wouldn't have chopped me again. A nice way of squeezing a fellow out, eh?"
"What are you going to do about it?" asked Evan.
"Get drunk," said Robb.
He did, too.
[1] The writer of this book took statistics in Toronto among eight of the leading banks in the summer of 1912, and found that out of 450 clerks 13.1 per cent. were over thirty, and 13.0 per cent. were married. Among those 450 bankclerks at least, a man had to be thirty before he could afford marriage.
A night or two after "Sam's souse," as the staff called it, four of the boys came back to the office and found Evan working, as usual, on the cash-book.
"Still at it?" asked Levison, the paying teller.
"Just struck a balance," replied Nelson.
"Good," said the teller, "we want another man to take a hand in poker. Come up when you're through."
"I don't know how to play," said Evan.
"You'll soon learn."
"I don't think I want to learn."
Sid grinned and Brower, the ledgerman, called:
"Aw, Nelsy, be a sport; we need some of this outside money."
The boys laughed in chorus and trooped through the office in the direction of the back stairway. There were rooms for juniors above the bank, and one of these was the party's destination.
"We'll look for you, kid," whispered Marks in passing the cash-book desk.
Nelson did not reply. He did not like to refuse the boys; besides, he was curious to know just how they acted in a game of poker, and he wanted a little cheap diversion. When his cash-book was ruled up for the following day he locked the vault, and saying to himself that he would just have a look-in for sociability's sake, went upstairs.
The four players were seated at a round table on which were five heaps of matches, one in the centre of the table and one at the elbow of each man. Evan sneaked in quietly and had learned something about poker before he was noticed. Several mysteries, including that attaching to the name "pot," had been solved in his mind before Levison felt the presence of an intruder and turned around with:
"Hello, Nelsy, come right in. Did you bring a little of that outside money?"
Evan smiled.
"I don't even know how to spell money," he said.
"All the more reason why you should take a hand," chimed in Brower. "I was broke the night before last, and now I've got three dollars and seventy-five cents, and am specializing in velvet."
"What's velvet?" asked Evan.
"This here," said three of the boys together, indicating reserve heaps of matches.
"And how much does each match stand for?" continued Nelson.
"We're playing penny," answered Levison, "with a nickel limit. That means fairly small losses for each man and a pretty good clean-up for the winner, with five playing."
"Have you been only two nights making three dollars and six bits?" Evan asked Brower.
"Yes," was the reply, "that's more than I can make in two days in the bank."
"Of course," observed Marks, "when you get a bean for a day's work you make it out of the bank, but this night-pay comes out of us. A slight difference, to use the words of a—"
"Come on," interrupted Brower, "ante and get the game a-going again."
"Sure," said Levison, turning away from the cash-book man.
Evan was coaxed no further, but stayed behind the boys and watched their plays. By and by he asked the teller about certain cards.
"Just a minute and I'll show you," said Sid. "Raise you five—pay me—ace high!"
"By Jupiter," grumbled Marks, "my heap looks like the Farmers Bank clearing."
"See," smiled the teller, while the others enjoyed Marks' ill-luck rather than his joke, "I made enough that time to retrieve half an hour's losses."
Evan looked across at the C man.
"How about Marks, though?" he asked, half-seriously.
"Don't worry about muh," cried Marks, "I see a 'straight' coming this time."
The C man laughed so hard and colored so quickly on seeing his hand that the other boys gaped at him and played carefully. He finally bluffed them out with a pair.
In the laughter and uproar that followed, Evan was studious. He had seen through the play, of course; but the excitement rather than the humor of it appealed to him. Here, he said within himself, was entertainment, company and economy combined. None of the boys were losing much, could lose much, and the pleasure they took out of it was surprising. Still, Evan was not fond of the idea of taking the smallest sum from his companions. He knew how hard they worked for it.
"Well, what about it?" asked the teller, suddenly, looking up at Nelson.
"I'm afraid I'd clean up on you fellows if I started," said Evan. "I think I'd be tempted to hand back my winnings at the end of each game."
Marks laughed and the others smiled.
"Don't consider us," said Brower, "if you want to play and pay for the fun you get, go to it; that's all we're in it for—just the sport."
"But it's gambling," protested Evan.
"So is going to the Island," observed Levison. "Maybe you'll have a good time and maybe you won't, but you pay your money just the same."
The sophisticated argument amused Evan, and helped him believe the boys were in their moderate little game only for amusement, cheap amusement. They could not afford to take girls out often or even go out alone, so they had invented an economic substitute for out-door pleasure. They were trying to take him in with them in their penny-saving pursuit and he wondered if their company were not worth the mental effort it cost him to surrender certain ideas about playing cards for money. In this state of mind he watched the game proceed.
For half an hour longer he stood behind their chairs, studying hands and trying to figure out the percentage of chance against each man. At the end of the time he was surprised to see all their reserves just about even, as they had been at first. Levison saw him intent upon the game.
"You see, Nelsy," he said, expectorating the stub of a cigar, "it's fair to every man. Occasionally somebody has a run of luck, like Brower had last night, and it's worth losing a little to see that happen; but usually we end up pretty much as we started."
"Except me," said Marks; "I just borrowed these chips from Cantel."
Until now Cantel had been silent, bent on earning the price of two theatre tickets for the coming Saturday night; but Marks' words roused him.
"Don't believe it," he said. "In the first place I never have chips to lend, and in the second place I wouldn't take a chance on this guy. I don't mind holding two deuces, but two I.O.U.'s of Marks' are too many for my job."
"Shut up and decorate," growled Brower, who, Evan immediately discovered, was the unhappy possessor of the four, five, six and seven of diamonds and the eight of clubs.
Marks tried a bluff and Levison called it.
"You're too industrious," cried the other C man "this bunch relinquishes its Angora only once a night."
Evan laughed, and felt his fingers itch for a draw. Instead of asking for a hand, though, he took a letter from his pocket and wrote on the back of it something for memorization. Then he told the boys he had not yet eaten supper, and they excused him with good-natured remarks. After indulging in a sandwich, a small bowl of rice-custard, and two slices of brown bread, he went up to the boarding-house. As Robb was not in, he was obliged to entertain himself. He hit on the form of entertainment uppermost in his mind—cards. He took the memorandum he had written above the bank, and dealing out a poker hand to four imaginary players and himself, proceeded to create flushes and other combinations. He was unfair in his playing, however, as he looked at each man's hand and selected cards from it instead of the pack. In this way he managed to deal himself a royal flush three times in fifty minutes. The exercise was tiring, though, and he leaned back in his chair. In that restful attitude a lethargy came upon him, and he day-dreamed about poker.
It was a game of science and chance, but were not all other games also dependent upon science and chance—even to a game of ball? There was something in what Levison had said: in going to the Island one did buy thechanceof having a good time. And as to the selfishness of the game, did not the boys want him to join them? If they were going to lose by having him with them it was not likely they would invite him. As far as his own possible losses were concerned, Evan had seen enough to feel sure he would break about even. Thus he would have all the fun for nothing, and would be one among the other fellows. Being without the money to participate much in a city's recreation, he welcomed the opportunity of getting something for nothing, which it seemed he would do in an odd game of poker at one penny ante.
The strain of daily work was severe; one could not think of spending the evenings with a book—that was too much like more work. What one needed was something with many laughs, a few cigarettes, and the company of other bankclerks. But where did bankclerks, on salaries varying from $300 to $800, congregate? At clubs? In the drawing-rooms of society? Under the white lights of theatre facades? No—in a shabby, lonely room somewhere, where a nickel looked like two bits. That was where one must go to be among them, and to be one among them he must buy, with his spare pennies, the chances of pleasure they bought.
Evan's dreaming was bringing him near the dividing-line between sense and nonsense. But what, O Employer of Labor, determined the trend of his dreams? If he had been able to take an occasional trip up to Hometon, only three hours' journey, would he have lain awake nights devising means of filling up the dreary evenings? If he had even been able to take a friend out to the theatre occasionally, those cool spring nights, without borrowing the money, would penny poker have so interested him? But you will not listen, Mr. Employer. You say: "If we raise him $200 instead of $100,he will only spend it anyway!" If your Maker had given you one hand instead of two, because of the possibility of your doing more harm with two than one, would you not doubt His wisdom, to say nothing of justice or mercy? What if the bankclerk does spend all he makes—who madeyouhis guardian? You are his employer, not his father or mother. If he can earn $1,000 a year after three years' service (and in theStar Weekly, Toronto, summer of 1912, a Canadian Bank official declared that a bankclerk was no good unless he could) what right have you to give him only $500 or $600?
Evan dreamed of amusing himself, until sleep came; sleep, almost the only inexpensive and valuable amusement some people get. Next morning he awakened in a sporting frame of mind, and went to work somewhat buoyant for having strangled an awkward scruple.
"Are you going to play again to-night?" he asked the paying-teller.
"Sure," said Levison, "but we've got five already. Bill Watson is coming. I don't think the fellows care for a six-handed game."
Evan did not notice the smile on Sid's face. He went back to his cash-book with the intention of coaxing his way into the evening's game. By and by Brower came along from the accountant's desk.
"Say, Nelsy," he whispered over the cash-book, "Marks got a sure tip from the races through his uncle to-day, and we're all going in on it. It's all right, believe me. He gave us one at the last races and we all made a five to one clean-up. This is a ten to one, sure. If you've got a dollar to throw away give it to Marks."
"I haven't got any to throw away," replied Nelson, annoyed that on top of his recent surrender to poker someone should try to coax him into playing the races.
"Oh, very well," laughed the ledgerman, "no harm done."
Evan made a sudden resolution that he not only would not bet with them that day but that he would pass up the poker game that night: it would show them that he had a mind of his own, even though he did want to be sociable. However, late in the afternoon he began to wonder what he would do in the evening. He almost wished the cash book would not balance before nine or ten o'clock.
Nevertheless, and strange to relate, about six o'clock the big red-backed book did balance. No one was around to hear Evan exclaim: "A first shot!"
He was washing his hands at the tap when a key turned in the front door and Cantel came running in.
"Hurrah! Hurrah!" he shouted, "we're all rich."
Evan asked him if he had gone crazy.
"No," replied Cantel, "but Levison has. He bet ten dollars and cleaned up a hundred. The rest of us made from ten to thirty. Here, Nelsy, here's your ten bucks."
The cash-book man laughed ironically.
"You certainly have gone nutty," he said, wiping his hands on the towel. "I didn't bet anything."
"Listen here," said Cantel, "this is the dollar I owed you. Brower told me you wouldn't bet, and we were so danged sure of cleaning up that I decided to place your bet myself. I made twenty on my own account."
Evan was struck with the sporting generosity of his fellow clerk, but could only decline the money.
"That's going too far, Cant," he said.
Cantel began to swear and continued swearing until several other clerks had clattered down through the office, whooping and laughing. Watson was almost fizzing with gin and lemon. Levison, too, walked with a slant. They gathered around Nelson, telling him what a good cash-book man he was and what a fool for not getting in on some of their "outside money."
"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Evan at last, "I'll take the dollar out that Cantel owes me and stake you the other nine on a poker game, providing you do not ask me to play."
"You f-foolish f-fellow," stammered Watson.
"Wh-what's s'matter?" asked Sid, thickly, "weren't you asking s'morning about a game?"
"I want to see how it's done once more before playing," parried Evan, who was in reality beginning to hanker after the game. It would, he figured, be almost as much fun looking on as playing—one night longer, anyway.
Upstairs in the little room five reserves and a pot stood before Nelson's eyes. The boys had been playing half an hour. Levison, drunk and reckless because of the day's winnings, bluffed out three jacks with a pair of kings and laughed until he nearly choked. Watson, too, played recklessly, but was singularly lucky. After three successful plays Bill exclaimed:
"Let's raise the limit; I'm sick of this monotony."
"I'm game," laughed Levison.
"Naw!" cried Cantel, who had been losing.
"Come on, be a sport," said Brower and Marks in different phrasing.
"Not for mine," replied Cantel; "I quit the game. Maybe Nelsy will sit in a few hands."
"Sure he will," said Marks, "there's class to him. He's a sport or he never would have thrown away nine bucks on millionaires like us. Come on, Nelson, get in the game."
"Yes, come on," coaxed Levison, in syllables impossible to write, "and if you lose too much we'll give you back something from the pot. It's only for fun—we want your company."
Without taking into consideration the raising of the limit, for the reason that he knew he would not need to bet, and figuring that he could play merely for the fun of it a while at penny losses, Evan gave in at length.
"Well, I'll try it," he said, ashamed of his stubbornness, "just for sport."
As luck would have it he raked in a few pots right on the start; then came odd losses and another succession of gains. His success seemed to please rather than tease the other boys, and, to repay them for their consideration, Evan decided it was up to him to make a few bets. He played rather recklessly after a couple of good winnings, saying to himself that the game was going to be short-lived; and his recklessness brought him luck.
How the time flew! Evan looked at his watch and could not believe his eyes—it was ten minutes to ten. He mentioned the fact to the boys.
"By Jove!" exclaimed Watson, "I must go down and have a swig before the bars close. Come on, Sid."
In a few minutes the two tipplers returned with what Bill declared to be a "full house"—three bottles of beer and two flasks of whiskey. Evan was sorry to see the stuff brought in and told them so.
"Now don't be too hard on us, Nelsy," pleaded Watson, in a drunkenly comical tone, "we won't ask you to drink."
"No, shir-ee," said Sid, "Nelz all right. Good sport."
Flattered in spite of himself, his blood warming up, Evan played on, and tolerated the drinks. Toward the close of the game he proceeded carefully, however, not that he intended to keep the money he had gained and use it for clothes or board, but that he might hold it over for other nights and prolong this newly-found form of amusement! He swore to himself, and told the boys, that when the money he had gained was spent he would not play any more, because he was beginning to see that some of the fellows might lose more than their salaries could afford. This was a special night, and they didn't notice it much, but as a precedent, and so forth, excuses and argumentsad infinitum.
Evan might have been able to stop after losing the sum he had gained, and he might not. Some bankboys had turned away from the exciting pastimes of the majority, to find what pleasure they could in walking the streets and patronizing the picture shows, but whether Evan would have been able to do it or not is not for this story to decide. He was not destined to remain in the bank, to suffer through the years its impositions; he was not going to be saddled with the responsibility of choosing between hopeless monotony and a life of blind recklessness. That miserable lot was for others, whom Nelson would some day assist in throwing off the yoke.
Sid Levison, now thirty years of age and drawing $1,100 a year, had made resolutions like Evan's, believing himself to be stronger than circumstances. He had started off in the bank with just as high ideals as Nelson's, and with a sweetheart just as true as Frankie; but years of disappointment had crushed both his hopes and his ideals, until now he lived for the petty and illusive pleasures of the moment; drink, gambling, and other demoralizing "recreations."
Sid Levison, and other bankclerks like him, were abandoned to a life of waste because they had never been given a fair chance. Had they been honestly paid for service in the early years of their banking life they might have spent, at first, all of their salary and done considerable mischief to themselves and others, but when they came out of their youthful nightmare the future would not have been blank and lustreless—as it often is to Sid Levisons, as matters stand. They open their eyes for a moment to the impossibilities of their situation, and close them again with a sigh or an oath, hating the light of common day, so cold and blinding in comparison with the witching glow of midnight flame.
Bill Watson and those other young poker-players were following in the way of their paying-teller, innocently, naturally. Every day they are following in that way, and the bank is perfectly willing that they should. Does not a man become dependent upon the bank in proportion as he loses his own self-dependence, and in proportion as a man is dependent upon his employer is he not subject to the whims of that employer?
The public often wonders about bankclerks, and about other office-men, too, in fact. Why don't they settle down at a reasonable age and do their part toward building up a nation? Young men in their teens are expected to be silly, but when a man of thirty is still a waster he becomes an enigma.
"What's the matter?" people ask; "where lies the origin of the trouble?"
"In human nature," the capitalist answers. That is the answer that pleases and excuses him. But is it true and sufficient?
Those whom fortune has favored may, until the day of doom, invent sophisms to veil their selfishness, but they cannot get rid of the obligations resting upon them—without discharging them.
When those obligations are ignored injustice is wrought, and oftimes the result is crime.